Over the last two years, various Tex Kerschen-related musical efforts have found their way to Splendid HQ, and everyone who's heard them has wished for a full album. Now, at last, that time has come.
Japanic aren't exactly new wave, but the majority of their stylistic cues come from new and no-wave. We're talking droning, stabbing keyboards, strangulated mechanical vocals, choppy, minimalistic guitars and a relative absence of sing-along pop melodies. If you listen closely, you'll hear elements of R&B slinking around in the nether regions of the music. If you'd like, imagine Gary Numan and Lene Lovich fronting an amalgamation of Devo and the Talking Heads. Doesn't that make your head hurt?
The little hooks -- elements of stylistic authenticity -- work as well here as they did back in the eighties. Singer and keyboardist Margeaux cultivates a suitably haughty air of scornful disinterest, lowered only for episodes of fevered call-and-response with Kerschen, making tunes like "That's What You Said Before" undeniably irresistible. On "Vanity", Tex trots out his best Howard Devoto imitation, and when he and Margeaux unite on a rudely catchy refrain -- "Do you wanna get yours?/Or do you wanna get down?" -- you'll be singing it for hours. Even when they're shooting for dissonance, Japanic can't help letting a few hummable hooks slip out.
Sometimes they don't let them slip far enough. On a few songs -- "Orpheus Express," for instance -- it sounds like the band members deliberately nip their poppier impulses in the bud for fear of compromising their no-wave ethic. That's a shame, as they show a fine instinct for likeable melodies and could easily take it further without turning into bubblegum new wave.
If you've enjoyed any of the growing crop of no-wave revival bands (and new-wave bands with no-wave tendencies), Red Book belongs in your collection. Japanic are less abrasive than Deerhoof and the rest of the KRS crowd, yet better realized than the Kiss Offs. Japanic have a lot of promise, and watching them get bigger and better will be very satisfying indeed.
